At a recent event SANParks CEO, Dr. David Mabunda called the SANParks Honorary Rangers a “pillar in the building of SANParks.” This is an indication of the important role the Honorary Rangers is playing in support of our National Parks. This involvement is growing in strength as our latest achievements shows.

The SANParks Honorary Rangers recently held its annual general meeting at Addo National Park in the Eastern Cape. This event was attended by some two hundred and thirty honorary rangers and senior SANParks staff.

The five day “Indaba”, was a mixture of meetings, training courses that members could attend, exploration of the hosting park and an opportunity to meet and converse with other honorary rangers from across South Africa. Addo Region hosted the event and made a spectacular success of it. The SANParks team narrowly beat the Honorary Rangers teams during the annual quiz, which was hosted by Quintin Coetzee. SANParks board member Prof. Graham Kerley gave an interesting talk on the Knysna Elephants and European Bison at the gala dinner on the Saturday evening.

The highlight of the event was the annual general meeting where feedback was given on achievements and decisions made on the future. National Executive Committee chairperson Janssen Davies highlighted some stunning results which were achieved during the previous year. This included a substantial growth in membership amongst all spheres of the South African population, bringing the membership to more than 1260 members. A focus area for the past year has been to increase the environmental educational outreach to the public to spread the conservation message. This showed a 29% growth from the previous year.

A special achievement was the overall contribution to SANParks which showed a 25% growth despite the harsh economic realities. It grew from 32 million rand during the previous year to 38 million rand during the 2011 book year.

Pretoria region was awarded the region of the year award for growth in membership and contribution on all levels. Pretoria grew its environmental education contribution significantly and grew its contribution to SANParks by 421%.

The project of the year was awarded to the Nampak Solid Waste Recycling project facilitated by the Johannesburg region. Nampak is busy installing a multi-million rand solid waste management and recycling system for the entire Kruger National Park and thereafter the project will be rolled out to other national parks.

A significant milestone was reached when Mr. Glenn Phillips, the SANParks Managing Executive: Tourism Development and Marketing and NEC Chairperson Janssen Davies signed a formal co-operation agreement, further cementing the relationship between the two organisations.

SANParks honorary rangers are volunteers committed to conservation in support of SANParks, and we are achieving some excellent results through dedicated and passionate service and good solid working relations with SANParks. We are looking forward to another year of growth.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum